Anyway, I’ve touched a tiny bit on here, and delved in a bit deeper on my own blog, about PayPal (and in reaction to PayPal certain retailers such as Bookstrand as well) and their recent determination that selling erotica and erotic romance is the same financial risk as selling Pornography, Prostitution and Online Gambling. As a result indie authors and publishers were all lumped into one big category and declared obscene. (This is an extremely simplified in-a-nutshell explanation culled from various official statements, as well as emails and letters written and posted on various places around the web. If you are interested I suggest you Google the topic to make your own determinations.)

Anyway, thanks to industry pressure–mainly irate readers and authors as well as Mark Coker of Smashwords–as well as a denial from Visa (whose policies PayPal cited for their decision), PayPal is reevaluating their position and backing off… slightly… but at least things are moving back in the right direction.

So, now it seems that the food industry is experiencing the same kind of issues, mainly misclassification and an attempt at censorship, and of all things, WALNUTS are the target.

In a recent article I read that many recent studies have determined that omega-3 fats may lower cholesterol, inhibit tumor growth, lower the risk of breast cancer and treat major depression. Walnuts naturally contain omega-3 fats. However, when Diamond Walnuts dared to state that on their label, the FDA cracked down on them with the following statement…

“Because of these intended uses, your walnut products are drugs… Your walnut products are also new drugs … because they are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the above referenced conditions. Therefore … they may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application.”

Now, I’m not talking about Diamond Walnuts making false, unsubstantiated claims. They have the omega-3 studies to cite, and the omega-3 fats are actually in the nuts naturally, but in a twisted sense of oversight the FDA has now grouped walnuts with drugs. Again, this is an extremely simplified explanation of what is a complicated situation so READ it yourself.

So, to recap, in the U.S. today, ROMANCE NOVELS = PORN and WALNUTS = DRUGS and both need to be regulated for our own protection.

What all this does, however, is make me want both more.

I’ve got a bag of walnuts here somewhere that I keep around for if I’m making chocolate chip cookies. Or if I take the time to make slow-cooking oatmeal, I’ll throw some walnuts on top to up my protein for the meal. Now, because I like to be contrary, I’m going to eat more walnuts. I’m going to put them in my salad. I’m going to leave them laying around in bowls in the house for a snack. I may make that my gift of the year this Christmas–nuts and nut crackers for everyone!! In fact, my go-to contribution for all the parties I attended last season was nuts–mixed pecans, peanuts and walnuts tossed with rosemary-infused olive oil, spiced with cumin, sugar, salt, pepper and just a touch of cayenne pepper and toasted for 20 minutes in the oven. That dish was a hit at all the parties pre-censorship, it should be huge now it’s an illegal “new” drug!

I am the exact opposite. I’ll spend far too much time and effort to get out every last drop. I’ve even poured the hot tea water into the bottom of the honey jar, then poured that into my tea to get every last morsel of honey out. What can I say? I don’t waste. I have a father who was raised by a single mother during WWII. I grew up hearing the stories of rationing and how there was no real butter. I guess that stuck with me.

So when I saw that mustard container sitting on the windowsill waiting to be carried to the recycling bin at the curb, I took back the mustard! I’m involved in this Romance’s Biggest Winner weight-loss challenge, and I knew I’d be having lots of salads over the next few weeks. I saw that mustard and thought what a perfect way to make some homemade salad dressing. I poured into that mostly but not quite empty mustard container some red wine vinegar, olive oil, a dash of water, a pinch of grated parmesan cheese, some fresh finely chopped garlic, a single dash of Worchestershire sauce, a touch of salt and pepper . Then I closed the lid and shook it all together.

I’ve been enjoying that dressing over romaine hearts. Sometimes I add grilled chicken breast. Last night for dinner I added garlic shrimp. That mustard dressing has lasted me all week long and the silly man almost threw it away! But I have to forgive him because he’s also the one who went out Sunday and returned home with bags of real wood Barbecue chips. Oh. My. God. Plain old boneless skinless (tasteless) chicken breast grilled over a combination of mesquite and apple wood chips is AMAZING! It’s unbelievable what simply cooking over these chips rather than with gas or charcoal can do to the flavor, all without adding any calories or fat. I’m ready to cook all our food like this. Fish. Steak. Everything! I daresay these woodchips may be my new favorite thing. Crazy thing is, my father probably disposes in the compost pile buckets of similar chips from his sawmill and we’re paying to buy it in tiny bags. I’ll have to investigate this…

So those are my two culinary revelations this week–cooking with stuff that could have been thrown out. LOL Let’s see if I can keep up both the diet and the food discoveries for another week. Fingers crossed because beware, it’s Girl Scout Cookie season.

Cat

First, and most obvious, I know I will personally feel a lot more sexy once I take off these 10 pounds of winter/holiday weight I somehow mysteriously put on. Jeans that are snug to cup the booty are one thing, but jeans that are too snug because you gained weight are quite another. So there’s that, but there’s also this…when I’m on a serious diet I actually eat well. It sounds very strange but it’s true. When I’m not on a diet, I don’t take care of myself. I’ll eat last night’s dinner leftovers of spicy fried Chinese dumplings for breakfast while I’m checking my emails. For lunch I’ve been known to eat a handful of nuts, also while at the computer working. But when I’m consciously on a diet trying to lose weight, I eat like a princess. I food shop. I cook. I sit at a table. I plan menus. I make homemade soup and eat green salads with tasty and creative homemade dressings. Total turnaround.

Yes, being on a diet is a lot more work, and more money, and more time, with shopping for the fresh ingredients rather than scouring the old cans in the closet looking for whatever is the least amount of work. But eating right, and on a plate at a table, almost makes me feel like I’m out at a restaurant, out on a date.

That’s why I’m not too worried that as of March 1st, I am part of Romance Biggest Winners 2. It’s a weight loss competition comprised of romance readers and authors placed on teams to support each other to lose whatever amount of weight they want/need to over the next 6 months. Some of the girls are blogging their experience and I thought I might pop in here with an update or a recipe once in awhile. It’s a nice concept to have us band together in teams, since both reading and writing can be very solitary occupations.

Today, I’d thought I’d include the instructions for my new favorite quick healthy food, Arugula Salad. When I used to try to eat Arugula as if it was regular lettuce, I hated it. It tasted a bit like grass clippings when I tried to use it instead of Romaine Hearts in a salad with dressing. Then I saw a recipe on ABC’s The Chew for Arugula and tried it, and it made all the difference in the world.

Maybe the strong flavor of the Arugula needs the tartness and the acidity of the lemons. I don’t know, but my mouth waters just thinking about this salad. Give it a try. It’s so green and fresh tasting, I feel healthier just from eating it.

ARUGULA SALAD

Put a generous couple of handfuls of fresh Arugula in a bowl. Drizzle with about 2 tablespoons good quality Olive Oil. Squeeze in the fresh juice of one half a lemon. Sprinkle with coarse salt (Kosher or Sea Salt, I hate using fine salt on food) and fresh ground pepper. If I have grape tomatoes I’ll add a handful of those. That’s it. Perfect with a steak, or a crab cake for a light lunch or dinner.

Enjoy!

Cat

Yes! You can do it. You don’t need to go to Starbucks and shell out $5 for a holiday seasonal latte. You don’t need to pack on ten extra pounds before you ever reach Aunt Ida’s turkey on the Thanksgiving table because you’ve been indulging in the new Gingerbread Grande with Extra Whipped Cream. How do I know? Because I have delved into the dark and scary recesses of my mind and come up with a coffee recipe that couldn’t be easier, has no extra calories, and is practically free.

Years ago I had a waitressing job at a shore club that catered weddings and such. The Long Island Sound and sand just feet from the windows meant they were a popular place (less so the year the hurricane hit and we were in the middle of a wedding in a heated tent outside on the sand in December. Yeah…But anyway…)

Well they had a signature coffee and though this was about 22 years ago, I still remember the ingredients and how good it tasted. There, we would throw a broken cinnamon stick, a spoon of sugar and a spoon of espresso grounds right in the coffee filter with the regular coffee grounds when making a pot. And just those few simple ingredients infused the pot of coffee with a subtle layer of warm flavor that everyone loved but not one guest every said, “Ew, is this flavored coffee?”

I recently was at the food store searching for the new Pumpkin Dunkin Donuts grounds and they didn’t have them. Since I’m on deadline, I’ve been drinking a lot of extra coffee and I was truly disappointed to not have what I was looking for available for me. I made a stop in the dairy aisle and picked up the Coffeemate Pumpkin Spice creamer, but one look at the label, and my ever-widening waistline, and I put it back down. Yes, before you all write in it’s only 30 calories a serving, go ahead and measure how much you put in your coffee cup. I estimated last year I was using 3 spoons per cup and I was up to 2 cups a day. My small frame can’t afford almost 200 extra calories daily, especially during the holiday seasons.

So, I went to the spice aisle and picked up a jar of cinnamon sticks–and put them down again because the price was INSANE and we were on our way to Sam’s Club anyway where I again visited the spice aisle and lo and behold, there I found a large jar of cinnamon sticks at a bargain price.

Now, each morning I do this… I put one broken cinnamon stick in the filter basket THEN on top of that I put the paper filter. The coffee grounds go inside that. I’m lazy so I rarely remember to add the espresso grounds. And I’m worried about calories so I forego the spoon of sugar most days. But the coffee dripping over the cinnamon sticks gives it a lovely flavor. Then I add my usual everyday creamer and sweetener and I’m happily drinking a lovely spiced winter brew.

When I throw out the coffee filter to clean the maker, I save the cinnamon sticks to use the next day. They are clean because they were under the filter and didn’t touch the grounds. You can probably get a week out of one stick.

So there you go…lots of time and energy spent over a cup of coffee but what can I say, it makes me happy. I haven’t tried it yet, but I bet you could use nutmeg or cloves or some other spices and make your own concoction at home.

Enjoy!

Cat

As I’ve mentioned here before, my friends and I are foodies. We get together weekly at one house and basically cook and eat together. I won’t say it’s exactly like the scene in the movie The Big Chill, but I’ll admit there is sometimes singing, and even once some dancing…long story. Anyway, we fancy ourselves cheese afficienados–so much so that one among us (who shall remain nameless) was told by his doctor his cholesterol was too high. His answer, “It’s not my fault. My wife enrolled me in the cheese of the month club.” No it wasn’t me or my husband, but we do all love our cheese, and I love all things cowboy, so when said cheese lover with high cholesterol was shopping at Fairway and saw cheese with the above cowgirl logo on it, he picked it up immediately, and oh my God was it good!

The one we had was the Mt Tam. So creamy. So tasty. So expensive! (The small round we had was $20.) But oh so good. So much so I was intrigued, as much by the name of the company as by the cheese. Here is what I found out about them…

The company was begun by 2 women in 1997 in a small coastal town in CA. I LOVE supporting small business and women-owned businesses even better. This artisan cheese is actually made in an old renovated barn–another thing I love to support–the reuse and repurposing of old buildings. For this handmade cheese, they buy organic milk from their neighbor. Yet one more thing I love–supporting America’s small farmers, not to mention how environmentally friendly it is to use local resources rather than trucking things from across the country, or worse, from another country.

You can read more about the Cowgirl Creamery and their philosophies regarding not only cheese, but also preserving rural life HERE. And even if you can’t buy Cowgirl Cheese where you live, I bet there’s a farmer’s market not too far away that sells artisan cheese made locally with the same loving care from local milk farmed by…you guessed it, local cowboys and cowgirls.

Cat

As I mentioned last post my friends and I, who gather weekly to share a meal, decided to add some flair to the get-togethers by creating a themed menu around periods in history. Though I hope we can skip out of order later and do a Colonial meal, as well as a Southern Civil War Era one, we began with the first decade of the 1900s. The menu choices were to be inspired by our personal heritages since that period in US history was the age of immigration and we chose Ellis Island as our theme.

So we had German, Irish, Italian, Jewish and Polish all represented in various mixes among us and here is the menu we served; once you read it you will see what I mean about the too many cooks because there was much too much food and way too many carbs, but perhaps that is my 21st Century sensibilities talking.

Drinks: German Beer, Italian Wine

Appetizers: Polish Kielbassa & German Knockwurst served with German Pretzels in a honey mustard dipping sauce. Italian Pizza Rustica, Irish Dubliner Cheese with crackers, Italian Olives

First Course: Jewish Matzoh Ball Soup

Main Course: Irish Shepards Pie, Tossed Green Salad w/ Italian Vinaigrette

Desserts: Jewish Chocolate & Raspberry-filled Rugalah, German Almond Pastry Puffs, Apple Kugel, and Raspberry Tart, and 2 boxes of assorted purchased Italian bakery cookies.

That doesn’t include the hot wings and fried chicken cutlets we also served to the children because they turned their noses up at our fare. So you can imagine the kitchen, every square inch covered in food. If you were one of the 3 people who actually logged in to our live streaming web broadcast you don’t have to imagine!

Anyway, we are going to do this again in spite of the “are you insane?” look I got from my husband last week when he heard it was a “themed dinner”. It will probably be in 2 weeks we’ll do the second decade of the 19th century, the theme being World War I. This time I am hoping we plan a tighter, more contained and less random menu. I have some of my cookbooks and old magazines out looking for popular drinks of the period and researching what foods were rationed because of the war. A book I discovered on my shelves, Vintage Cocktails: Authentic Recipes and Illustrations from 1920-1960,says that in 1914 “As World War I rages, the Martini is America’s number-one cocktail, known throughout the world as the symbol of all things civilized.”

So there you go. Perhaps I’ll pack an overnight bag for this one since we might be drinking martinis. You may want to tune in to the live streaming broadcast.

What is this of which I speak? They decided to each week choose a different decade and plan a meal around the food popular during that time period, and somehow it morphed to also include the drinks of the period and the clothing. I personally think our friend Grace simply wanted an excuse to dress up, but whatever, it’s happening.

Tomorrow we begin with the turn of the century. The age of immigration in this great country of ours when the huddled masses poured through Ellis Island carrying with them their meager belongings, whatever name the overworked immigration official bestowed upon them, and the foods native to their homeland.

This project has taken on a life of its own and tomorrow I’ll be cooking and I suppose looking for some sort of babushka to wear. We’re hoping to get a live cam up and running in the coming weeks so fans can join us for our weekly culinary travels through time. Hell, if nothing else, it should be entertaining!

There was just something about it all–the freshness, the old fashioned glass bottles–added to the lakeside setting, that made the coffee richer, the milk colder, the whole experience better.

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, maybe it’s time we all took a step back to simpler times. And even if you can’t get away to a lake, I bet with a little research you can find milk in glass bottles locally.  Give it a try! You won’t be regret the experience.

The clams are barely an hour old when we’d bring them back to the house and throw them in the closed shells on a hot BBQ grill rack. They cook only until they open up, then you take them in hand, shoot just a dash of hot sauce and eat them, all hot and tasty good, right out of the shells. No utensils, no plates. Add an icy cold beer to cool the fire of the hot sauce and you’ve got all you need.

Of course, for the catching this year, since clamming began at low tide which was 8 in the morning, we indulged in Mimosas made right on the boat out of Prosecco and orange juice.

This year we did something a little different. Since we had a professional chef with us, he insisted we not use the bounty up for our little grilling/drinking party. Instead, he brought the clams back to our rental’s kitchen and turned them into incredible home made chowder on the first night, so light and tasty people went back for third helpings. Then on the next night, the rest were made into Linguini and Clam Sauce, with tons of garlic, good olive oil and fresh parsley.

Another summer’s Rhode Island vacation has come and gone, but the memories will last forever and next year we’ll be back. Clams, look out!

There’s this guy in a truck I stumbled upon a few years ago. He starts up the smoker in the morning, fills it full of ribs, drives to a parking lot and sits there. When the ribs are properly smoked, he’s open for business. When they’re gone, he’s done for the day. Incredible food and I was happy to find him parked along the road. Extra nice in this day of chain restaurants churning out mass amounts of cookie-cutter food.

Today I was equally as lucky. I stumbled upon a new BBQ place literally in a hole in the wall. The Round Up Texas Texas BBQ is on Rt. 9 in Cold Spring (Putnam County, NY) and is stuck in a parking lot behind Old Post Hardware. If there wasn’t a sign along the road (and smoke billowing out of the smoker) we would have never seen it.

The atmosphere is wooden picnic tables with rolls of paper towels on them, longhorns and indian blankets on the walls, and one huge flatscreen TV tuned to golf, but you are not there for the atmosphere, believe me. You are there for the brisket smoked 18 hours and the fall-off-the-bone ribs. An hour later I can still taste the smokey flavor in the back of my throat. It’s rare to have food that sticks with you–in a good way. The chicken was good (the skin was the best part). The spicy sausage was also good. But the stars were the brisket and ribs in my opinion, along with some wonderful and surprisingly spicy mac and cheese.

Places like that are few and far between in a world populated with Outback Steakhouses and Applebees. I’m making it my personal mission to make sure the little guys stick around.